HP TouchSmart 610 (1065qd) Review

Does anyone have the right touch? Several touch-enabled all-in-one (AIO) desktop PCs have passed through our labs over the last year, as the Apple iPad suddenly made tablet computers relevant, and smartphones, many of them with touch screens, outsold personal computers for the first time. But Windows 7 is still designed primarily for a mouse and keyboard, and on most AIO PCs, the pre-installed touch-interface software still feels like an afterthought. Most of the time, the touch software we've seen has been anchored by a ubiquitous photo-flicking editor app, a pointless sticky-notes program, and perhaps a few forgettable Flash games optimized for finger input.

Hewlett-Packard’s TouchSmart PCs and their accompanying software have, in recent years, been the exception to this sorry rule. The models we've seen include a commendable collection of touch programs that are actually useful, such as Netflix, Hulu, Rhapsody, Recipe Box, and, with this model, a full version of Ubisoft's recent Risk-like strategy game, R.U.S.E. But while HP’s TouchSmart software might make users want to poke, prod, and pinch their PCs, the traditional vertical orientation of the touch screen has made the process awkward and tiresome.

HP’s new-for-2010 TouchSmarts, the TouchSmart 610 line, look to solve that problem with a 23-inch screen that reclines to a 60-degree angle. It’s a smart idea in theory, since the lying-down screen is more amenable to prolonged touch-input computing. And in practice, it plays well, though the slide mechanism feels a bit clunky. (Much more on that later.) Also, the sliding screen results in a few other design trip-ups that don't affect upright PCs. For one: Unless your desk is extremely deep, the keyboard has nowhere to go (other than your lap) once you slide down the screen.

That being said, the TouchSmart 610 we tested is one of the most powerful AIOs we’ve seen to date, with dedicated gaming-class graphics and a slew of other entertainment-friendly features. We’d suggest making sure you have lots of desk space to accommodate it, and a well-padded budget, as well. Though it starts at $999 for a dual-core model with integrated graphics, our review unit (specifically, TouchSmart model 610-1065qd) is tricked out to the tune of $1,789, making it one of the pricier all-in-ones to pass through our labs. But if you're looking for a high-end desktop with touch input, the TouchSmart 610 offers the best combination of performance, design, and software we've seen to date.

Design

Compared to the last-generation model, the TouchSmart 600, the TouchSmart 610 sports a more streamlined look, with a curved, slightly bowed back that allows the screen (with the PC components encased behind it) to slide down into the reclining position. To do this, from the upright position, you’ll need to grab the top of the TouchSmart 610 while standing in front of it and first tilt the screen back. You’ll definitely need to do this with two hands, as it takes a fair amount of force. Doing so with one hand can unbalance the system, resulting in it wobbling around or turning on your desk instead of tilting back.

Once you've got the screen tipped back, getting it to slide down is simpler. Just press on the top of the screen with a bit of force, and it slides down into its reclined mode. The sliding mechanism is aided by a combination of springs and braking pads. (See the image below.) Oddly, though, when the screen slides down into recline mode, the bottom of the TouchSmart 610’s chassis scrapes on the desk a bit. HP was obviously well aware of this; the body of the machine has soft, Velcro-like pads on the back in two spots to keep the desk and the PC from getting scratched. We’re thankful for the pads, but we wonder if they might wear away or come off over time. We also worry a bit about kid fingers (or an adult's, for that matter) getting pinched between the desk and the PC when the screen slides down. We recommend caution with children around, at least until they get used to how the TouchSmart 610's sliding scheme works. More than that, though, we wonder why the screen has to touch the desk at all. If the stand were just a smidge taller, this wouldn’t be a problem.

HP obviously put a lot of thought and technical know-how into this machine's sliding mechanism, but the action still feels a bit clunky to us.

Raising the stand and giving the screen an inch or two of clearance beneath would solve another design issue we have with the TouchSmart 610: When you slide down the screen, the whole thing also moves toward you, leaving nowhere to stow the wireless keyboard. If the screen were slightly raised, the keyboard could stay in place in front of the stand and tuck under the screen. As it is now, you’ll need to pick up the keyboard and put it on your lap, or set it aside. Unless you have lots of desk space to spare, it's all-around awkward.

The big volume and mute buttons are a nice touch for an entertainment PC. Two HDMI-in ports can be found on the other edge.

Another issue caused (or at least exacerbated) by the reclining screen is glare. The TouchSmart 610’s LCD isn’t the glossiest we’ve seen, but in our labs, with typical overhead fluorescent lighting, the angle of the screen caught the lights every time when we reclined the screen. That could be a problem for those using the TouchSmart in an office or other place where they may not have full control over the lighting. Switching off the lights and opting for natural sunlight from a nearby window killed the glare, but this won't be an option in every situation.

Ports & Components

Though the implementation of the slide-down screen was a bit lacking, the port selection on this PC is impressive. We often lament the lack of an HDMI-in port on large-screen, 1080p-resolution PCs like these. That's because in cramped spaces (such as dorms or small apartments), these PCs, if equipped with HDMI, can serve double duty as HDTVs, letting you connect cable boxes and video-game consoles. You can do both with the TouchSmart 610, thanks to a pair of HDMI ports that reside on the right side, below the slot-loading Blu-ray drive.

On the left edge, the TouchSmart 610 is loaded with buttons and ports. Dedicated volume buttons and a separate mute button reside up top, a multi-format flash-card reader sits below that, with a pair of USB 2.0 ports and headphone/mic jacks below. This is a wealth of side-mounted ports, though we worry a bit about plugging things into them if you’re in the habit of frequently sliding the screen up and down. Again, this is one of those design compromises that comes with innovative design. We’re happy to see HP trying something new, but we’d make sure there's plenty of clearance on both sides of the TouchSmart 610, so you don’t knock over a full coffee cup or other desktop denizen with your plugged-in flash drive or HDMI cable.

The rear ports are behind the stand, well-hidden behind a flip-down door. Here, you can also see the large slide-off panels on either side of the stand; they afford access to the drives and RAM for upgrades.

Around back, the rear-panel ports are well-hidden inside a recess, behind a drop-down door in front of the stand. In there, you’ll find a trio of audio jacks, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a coaxial cable jack for the TV tuner, and four USB ports. Two of the USB ports here are of the new, super-speedy USB 3.0 variety. Unfortunately, though, all of the ports have been crammed together in the tight space and mounted vertically to keep the back of the machine looking clean. That makes the ports difficult to get to, especially once a few have been filled by cables or flash drives. It’s not a huge problem, but you'll need nimble fingers to plug and unplug things. We'd strongly prefer to see the speedier USB ports on the side of the system. If you want to use these ports, we’d suggest investing in a USB 3.0 hub.

The recess housing the back ports is cramped, hidden behind a plastic door. That’s also where you’ll find the pair of speedy USB 3.0 ports.

The internal components in our test configuration are quite impressive. For starters, there's a quad-core Intel Core-i7 870 CPU, one of the most powerful processor chips we've seen yet in an AIO desktop. It's backed by a generous 8GB of DDR3 RAM; that's a touch excessive for everyday computing, but if you open dozens of tabs in your browser window or do lots of intensive image editing, it will be helpful. The system's 1TB hard drive is sufficient for housing most media libraries, and the slot-loading Blu-ray drive (along with the internal TV tuner) help make this a well-equipped entertainment PC. And the built-in, Beats Audio-branded speakers sounded pretty good to our ears, especially for an all-in-one. They can be cranked up quite loud, provide a fair amount of bass, and should be sufficient for movie watching or music listening, even in a large room.

On the graphics front, the TouchSmart 610 we tested was equipped with a dedicated AMD Radeon HD 5570 graphics processor with 2GB of its own memory. It's certainly not a high-end video chip by 2011-desktop standards, but as we'll see later in testing, it's generally powerful enough to run today's games if you don't mind dialing down the resolution and in-game settings a bit. Those less interested in best-possible gaming performance can opt for a Radeon HD 5570 with half the dedicated memory and knock $50 off the price.

Touch Software

Little has changed with HP's TouchSmart 4.0 software since we saw it recently on the smaller-screened, non-reclining TouchSmart 310z. The main difference is a performance one: The interface does run more smoothly on the 610 model, thanks to the PC's more-powerful internal components. Previous versions relied on a carousel-like interface that had you scrolling back and forth between running apps at near-full-screen, which often became tedious when you were trying to multitask. This time around, HP has implemented a sort of live desktop background on which you can drop running apps (such as Facebook or Twitter), so you can get back to them with a single tap, as well as photos, notes, music, or videos.

HP calls these items “magnets,” and the analogy is apt since the items you drop on the background are easy to see and interact with (by tapping). But as anyone who has placed magnets and photos on a refrigerator knows, before long, things tend to get disorganized and messy. Thankfully, the software allows for more than one actual desktop screen, so when things get crowded and cluttered, you can swipe to the left or right for more space to place magnets.

New, as well, with this iteration of the TouchSmart software is the addition of an app store. (It's dubbed the Apps Center, likely to avoid the ire of Apple.) We think an apps marketplace is an important step in the right direction for making touch computing appealing, since the limited touch apps that come pre-installed here, while better than what's found on competing touch PCs, will become stale over time. Unfortunately, as of this writing (in mid-April 2011), we noted only 10 available apps, most of which were free time-wasters, such as a bubble-wrap-popping game and kid-centric Cartoon Network titles. A Marvel Comics app holds some promise, though you’ll have to pay for most of that content. Still, reading comics on a large tilt-down screen seems like it would be a fun way to keep up with the adventures of Peter Parker and the X-Men. We hope that HP can get DC Comics, the other comic-publishing giant, on board with a TouchSmart app, as well.

Apart from the apps, those making use of the TouchSmart's HDMI ports or the TV tuner will also appreciate the picture-in-picture program. It lets you do the obvious, of course—watch TV in a window while computing, or vice versa—but it also kicks up a nice touch interface for adjusting TV-centric screen settings. From here, you can tweak things like brightness and contrast, as well as switch between HDMI connections.

HP has definitely improved its TouchSmart software with the move to 4.0, but only time will tell whether its most important feature, the Apps Center, grows into something exciting or fizzles into the future with just a handful of ho-hum offerings.

A trio of quality wireless peripherals is included. We’re especially fond of the slim keyboard: It’s comfortable to type on either on a desk or in your lap.

Performance

Performance is one area where the TouchSmart 610 is unquestionably a winner, at least in our test configuration. Its collection of components set new productivity-performance records among the all-in-one PCs we've tested, besting HP's other recent offering, the non-touch-capable HP Omni 200 Quad. It also beat out the Asus All-in-One PC ET2400XVT in productivity tasks—a similarly priced, but gaming-centric, AIO with a 3D screen and a more powerful Nvidia graphics card. Here's a table of the performance breakdown...

As you can see, in Cinebench 10, as well as our Windows Media Encoder video-conversion test, both of which largely reflect relative CPU performance, the TouchSmart 610 leads the pack by a fairly wide margin. Keep in mind that our video-conversion test involves transcoding a short file that's roughly 3 minutes long. The time differences may seem slim here, but when converting or editing longer video files, the differences will increase in proportion to the file size.

The bigger win for the TouchSmart 610, though, is in our PCMark Vantage test, a holistic test suite designed to measure overall system performance. It's unsurprising, perhaps, that the TouchSmart 610 bested the $979 HP Omni 200 Quad's score by over 30 percent. But the Asus ET2400XVT, even though it's decked out with that premium 3D screen, was crushed by the TouchSmart 610 on this test by an embarrassing 40 percent. If you're looking for a powerful family PC that also has the muscle for demanding tasks like HD video editing, HP's TouchSmart 610 is clearly the most capable of the current pack of high-end AIO systems. Conversely, if your most-frequent computing tasks lean more toward Facebook and media playback, you're better off opting for a lower-end configuration of the TouchSmart 610. (They start at $1,000, with a dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU.)

The TouchSmart 610 isn't billed as a gaming PC, but the dedicated Radeon HD 5570 graphics chip in our review unit should be sufficient to play most modern games, so long as you're willing to dial down resolution and graphics settings. Just how far you'll have to dial back the settings depends largely on how recent and demanding a given game is. Using one of our standard test games, Far Cry 2, we gave the TouchSmart 610 a workout under DirectX 10. This is a relatively demanding game that launched in October of 2008, and the TouchSmart 610 managed a close-to-playable average frame rate of 22.2 frames per second (fps) at the screen's native 1,920x1,080 resolution with most graphics settings set to high. Dialing just a couple of the eye-candy options back was all we needed to do to achieve playable frame rates. (A rate of 30fps is our usual threshold for that.)

We then moved to the newer DirectX 10 title Just Cause 2, which launched in March 2010. With this game, the TouchSmart 610 managed an average of 15.6fps at the screen's native resolution with most graphics settings enabled. You'll have to dial back a few more settings here and perhaps reduce the resolution to play this title on the TouchSmart 610. Next up was Aliens vs. Predator, a more-demanding DirectX 11 title that's also been around since early 2010. With it, the TouchSmart 610 was only able to muster an average of 6.2fps with settings on high and the resolution set to 1,920x1,080. Dropping the resolution to 1,280x720 and pushing most graphics options to low, we were able to achieve a playable average frame rate of 32.8fps.

Bottom line: Don't expect stunning performance, but the TouchSmart 610 is a fine mainstream-gaming performer, especially considering its all-in-one form factor. It's more than capable of running popular games such as World of Warcraft and The Sims, making it a fine family PC if you've got a gamer living under your roof.

Conclusion

There are quite a few impressively designed, solidly performing all-in-one PCs on store shelves these days, including Apple's massive-but-pretty 27-inch iMac on the high-end, and good midrange offerings such as the Gateway One ZX6951-53 and HP's own Omni 200 Quad. But Apple's iMacs don't have touch screens, and while we like the Gateway One a lot, its touch software isn't all that substantive. If you buy one, you'll likely use the touch screen for a couple of weeks, until the novelty wears off or your arms get tired from poking at the vertical screen (or both).

The TouchSmart 610 takes what was already the best touch-based PC in the business and makes it more appealing with a slide-down screen that's effective in making it feel like a giant tablet. We think the sliding mechanism could use some work, and we'd be sure to have a lot of desk space before buying. But if you're looking for a high-end entertainment or family PC with substantive touch-screen software you would actually want to use, the TouchSmart 610 is the best we've seen. If the price is too much for your wallet, remember that it's a fully configurable PC if you order it directly from HP, so you can start with the $1,000 base model and upgrade any components you might need (while nixing the ones you don't) before buying.